(This is the MegaMac which is basically a Double Big Mac. Four meat patties! So awesome!! We arrived at the hotel around 12:30pm and within 20 minutes, I had a MegaMac meal in front of me :P)
Egypt so far has been a whirlwind of things to see and do. No other country has made me feel like such a tourist, and it’s exhausting! For starters, sleeping hasn’t been too easy to come by, starting with the ferry over from Sudan. I slept on the deck head-to-foot with some of my truckmates, and if I stretched my legs out at all, I’d kick my friend Jon in the head. It happened a good half dozen times and each time, I lie awake wondering if he’d finally get mad and yell at me. (He never did.) This wasn’t so bad, since at least I wasn’t the one being kicked in the head. What Was bad was the 5am abhorrently loud prayer call via bullhorn located approximately three feet away. So, so terrible! It felt like someone was screaming “Allah” along with some other Arabic words at me for several uninterrupted minutes. It can’t be healthy to have, what could be something along the lines of “WAKE UP!!! TIME TO PRAY NOW!!!! NOW!!!! NOW!!!!”, being yelled at you every morning! Goodness! Prayer calls were pretty bad in Aswan too: There was one prayer call at 3:30am that lasted for at least seven minutes. In Luxor, we heard that the prayer calls last for an hour?! Thankfully, the rooms in Luxor and Cairo were sufficiently soundproof.
Getting off the ferry in Aswan was a good introduction to, frankly speaking, how irritating (some) Egyptians can be. They pushed and shoved their way off the ferry, into the customs lines, and when exiting the “arrival hole.” Anything you read about Egypt warns you about the touts and being taken advantage of. Actually, being/feeling taken advantage of happened more often than I would have liked. When Theo first arrived in Cairo, he got suckered into going into a shop and buying perfume oil he didn’t want. At one of the temples, these guys wanted to be in our picture, and after taking our picture, demanded money.
Still mad about this...
People stand outside of the bathroom demanding money and you are never quite sure if you actually have to pay or not. It gets to a point where you just don’t want to talk to anyone or even stop to ask someone for directions for fear that they will either try to sell you something or demand money. The markets during the day were especially annoying because every vendor had nothing better to do but question you about where you’re from and whatnot in order to sucker you into going into their shop. You don’t want to be rude, but you don’t want to engage into some stupid conversation neither you nor the shop owner care about. Bah! (After sundown, the markets were swarming with people and the vendors basically left you alone…)
But not all Egyptians are annoying, and our interactions with some of them were quite heartwarming. One little boy tried to sell us bookmarks and after about ten seconds, he gave up and just walked with us through the market. He told me I had beautiful eyes. When Theo asked him how to say “beautiful eyes” in Arabic, the little boy said, “thank you.” :) Mohammed (the little boy) asked if Theo was my husband, Theo said yes. Mohammed then put his arm out for me and offered, “second husband?” Also, finding out that Theo had no camels, nine-year-old Mohammed said he had 50 million, and that that would get him 100 wives. Super cute!
Apart from getting suckered into buying things at the souq (scarves, papyrus, etc…), Aswan was really nice actually. I didn’t expect it to be so developed and beautiful along the Nile. The Aswan High Dam wasn’t that impressive to see, but it was pretty much included in a trip to the Philae Temple:
I had a hard time paying attention to our guide, but I found out that the temple was moved from its original location after partial flooding from the construction of the Aswan Low Dam. The temple sits on its own island and you access it by boat (after pushing past some of the more aggressive touts). Philae Temple is said to be one of Osiris’ places of burial.
One of the highlights during our stay in Aswan was a visit to Abu Simbel:
We had to be up and ready to go by 3:30am for the three hour, police convoy escorted drive to the city. Apparently, the police convoy was for safety, but we didn’t get it on our drive back from Abu Simbel to Aswan?? Abu Simbel was pretty amazing, not just for how cool Ramses II’s Great Temple and his (first) wife Nefertiri’s Temple were, but the fact that this temple, like Philae, was moved from its original location.
The scale and utter success of the endeavor make it much more impressive than Philae, however. There was an exhibit demonstrating how they cut the temple into pieces and reassembled it into a dam/mountain. The temple is HUGE and you pretty much can’t tell that workers sawed the entire temple apart! Really, really cool!
We left Aswan via felucca and spent two days sailing up the Nile towards Luxor. The feluccas traveled at a snail’s pace, but it was pretty relaxing not to have to do anything but relax :)
Up Next: Luxor Recap
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